While Iran Hoped Europe Would Freeze, It Sells Oil At Half Price

Ali-Akbar Alvandian, secretary of cement producers’ association told the website that natural gas flows to many factories have been reduced and the alternative fuel, mazut, which is a dirty variety of diesel is also hard to procure.

Iran, which has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves is unable to meet domestic demand, especially in cold and hot months when energy consumption rises to its highest levels.

Power generation stations also receive less gas and resort to burning the highly polluting mazut, which has blanketed Iranian cities in a thick layer of pollution in recent weeks. As a result, the government has restricted mazut shipments to cement and other factories.

Lack of natural gas also hurts Iran’s petrochemical industry, which is a significant source of export earnings.

Iran needs around $40 billion of investment and Western technology to boost its gas production, which has been gradually falling. At the same time due to extremely low prices for consumers, gas and electricity usage increases by around 6 percent annually.

Without resolving its disputes with Western powers, Iran would not be able to provide the investment and acquire the technology needed for revitalizing its natural gas production.

Speaking at a press briefing, Blinken said the US was working alongside “the many countries that share our fundamental interests and values.” In the Middle East he cited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, and Israel. Blinken extended “congratulations to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu on announcing the formation of a new government.”

Netanyahu's relations with the Biden Administration was not as close as his friendship with former President Donald Trump and tension with Palestinians could spike because of the influence of religious parties in his government.

“Nato has never been stronger or more united,” Blinken said. “We doubled the number of battlegroups along Nato’s eastern flank…the Russian war machine is in dire straits.”

Both Iran and Russia, Blinken said, shunned diplomatic solutions. “We have to see some meaningful evidence that Russia is prepared to actually negotiate and negotiate,” he said.

Blinken acknowledged Iran had abided by its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), until the US in 2018 left the JCPOA. But he attributed the failure of talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA solely to Iran not being “willing or able to do what’s necessary.”

100%

With growing talk in Washington and Tel Aviv of a ‘military option’ against Iran, Blinken noted the challenges the US faced in downsizing its Middle Eastern military presence.

Marginal events, significant developments

David Barnea, head of Mossad, at the Israel’s intelligence agency awards Thursday, attacked the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement as “absurd” and looked forward to a government in Tehran that was as close to Israel as was the Pahlavi Shah before the 1979 Revolution.

A review of “significant regional developments…including the current situation in Iran” was the center of Friday’s virtual meeting between US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, according to a White House statement. Given their “shared commitment to countering Iran’s threats to the region,” the officials “discussed the broad array of economic sanctions imposed in recent months against Iran” and “reviewed ongoing cooperation and exercises between the US military and Israel Defense Forces.”

Gabi Portnoy, an Israeli cybersecurity official, dismissed as a “marginal event” the hacking of Israeli security footage of a bombing in Jerusalem November – attributed to an Iranian hacktivist group ‘Moses Staff.’ In remarks reported by the Times of Israel Friday, Portnoy said Israel security agencies “didn’t do the minimum required.”

Artificial intelligence, unmanned vessels

In a press briefing Thursday, General Michael Kurilla, Commander of the US Central Command - which covers the Middle East and which has included Israel for a year – said adversaries would be combatted both by “values-based relationships” and the military use of artificial intelligence, including “unmanned systems...[like 100 naval] surface vessels and undersea vessels.”

The US had a “very strong military-to-military relationship” with Saudi Arabia, Kurilla said, exemplified by his discussion that morning with General Fayyad Al-Ruwaili, the Saudi chief of staff. Egypt, Kurilla noted, had a “large, modern, and powerful military” due in part to US training and equipping over 30 years.

“We’ve got to cultivate deep, abiding partnerships that can serve as a hedge against threats in the region while deterring Iran from its worst, most destructive behavior,” the CENTCOM commander said, as Tehran continued “to violate [US] sanctions,” and to “undermine regional security and stability through militia groups, ballistic missile capabilities, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones], and routine threats to international waterway.”

In a speech to his agency’s employees, Barnea warned about Tehran’s intentions, underlining that the Islamic Republic continues daily cyber-attacks and other machinations against Israel. He added that Mossad is ““still warning about Iran’s future and intentions, which it is trying to keep secret.”

The spy chief also called the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA an “absurd” agreement taking aim at the United States and its European allies who have been negotiating with Tehran to revive the accord since early 2021.

The diplomatic effort has come to an impasse as Iran is ramping up uranium enrichment but the Biden Administration and the European Union still say that diplomacy is the best option to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

“We are warning about Iran’s intention to expand its uranium enrichment program, and its intention to increase its influence over friendly Muslim countries in the region in various ways,” he said, vowing never to allow the Iran’s clerical regime to obtain nuclear weapons.

He also praised the Iranian protest movement, saying hundreds have been killed in the streets, calling it “unrestrained brutality” by regime forces.

Barnea claimed that Israel provided intelligence to its Western allies earlier in the year about Iran’s plans to provide killer drones to Russia to be used against Ukraine and insisted that Tehran is preparing more weapons deliveries to Moscow.

US officials have been expressing concern over Iran’s growing military ties with Russia and the prospect of North Korea providing weapons to the Russia military which is facing shortages.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said US intelligence officials determined that North Korea completed an initial arms shipment that included rockets and missiles last month.

"We assess that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine," Kirby said. "But we're certainly concerned that North Korea is planning to deliver more military equipment."

US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield also said Thursday, “It is despicable that Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is now using weapons procured from the DPRK and Iran – in violation of UN Security Council resolutions – to pursue its war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Kirby said the US now assesses that Wagner has some 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts that the company has recruited from prisons.

The US assesses that Wagner, owned by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, is spending about $100 million a month in the fight, Kirby said.

Wagner has faced US sanctions since 2017. The Commerce Department on Wednesday unveiled new export restrictions targeting Wagner in a bid to further restrict its access to technology and supplies.

Russia has also turned to Iran to provide drones to use against Ukraine, and the Biden administration has expressed concern that Russia may seek to acquire additional advanced conventional weapons from Iran.

The crackdown on protesters in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, known as the Bloody Friday, took place September 30, when security forces killed more than 80 people, including women and children.

During a meeting with the directors of Sunni religious schools of the province’s Coordination Council on Wednesday, December 21, Abdolhamid, the top religious leader of Iran's largely Sunni Baluch population living in the province, rejected the narrative of the regime about the tragic incident, saying that the Bloody Friday cannot be reduced to some errors by the security forces. 

Underlining that the killing in Zahedan was “a premeditated plot,” he repeated his demands for the prosecution of the perpetrators of this massacre.

He also rejected statements by officials, including a delegation sent by Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei in November, about protesters attacking a police station before security forces opened fire at them. He emphasized that security forces fired live ammunition at peaceful protesters in Zahedan, insisting that the attack was unprovoked. 

100%

"We have evidence that... the police station was not attacked at all and not even a single person went towards the police station. After people were shot at from the police station, some of them moved towards the police station, and pelted stones at the station,” he highlighted. 

The claim that the police station was attacked by an armed gang is not true at all, he said, adding that not even one military officer was killed in the incident. 

Abdolhamid said that the whole tragedy was a plot by the regime, noting that discrimination against Sunnis and Sunni mosques had already started in several cities before September 30. He added that “the governor of Mashhad had announced that he would not allow any Sunni prayer house to operate in his city. In Tehran, they said either bring a permit or we will close the prayer hall."

The Sunni cleric went on to explain that the main cause of such as incident is the "discrimination against Sunnis" in Iran, saying, "When the government discriminates against Sunnis and they are barred from holding any important positions in the armed forces and the judicial system, it is clear that officers beat our people mercilessly."

Officially known as Sheikh Abdolhamdid Esmailzehi, the Sunni cleric is widely popular because for his willingness to challenge Khamenei’s absolute authority. An audio file recently leaked by the hacktivist group Black Reward revealed that the Islamic Republic planned to tarnish Abdolhamid’s reputation to curb his influence. In November, the outspoken Sunni Imam said women, ethnic and religious groups, and minorities have faced discrimination after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He has also called for an internationally monitored referendum in Iran saying by killing and suppression the government cannot push back a nation.